Change - or Die

Bruce Renny, Marketing Director of ROK, believes that mobile networks are fast becoming commmodities, with potentially serious consequences
Much as they pretend it's not really happening - like turkeys ignoring the onset of Christmas - most mobile networks are sliding slowly, but surely, into becoming mere commodity providers. Nothing more, in the eyes of the consumer, than those companies who compete to sell us our water, gas and electricity. An essential pipeline, of course, but a pipeline nonetheless.
For those of us able to remember a time when using a mobile phone was a daily miracle, and the companies that brought us our mobile services were seen as cool, it is apparent that the novelty has, to a very large extent, worn off. Particularly among the younger demographic who grew up with the technology and now take mobile telephony for granted. It seems almost a cause for nostalgia...
Of course, novelties, by their very nature, do wear off, but for the mobile industry as we know it, the ramifications of the inevitability of convergence and the resultant commoditisation of mobile communications as a whole represent a potentially fatal threat to the existing mobile industry revenue streams of voice, text and data, unless some radical action is taken now.

From Cool to Corporate
You can't really blame the mobile network operators for failing to embrace convergence, of course. After all, much of the investment undertaken by the carriers in trying to build upon their original 'cool' brand status, while retaining and growing their customer base will, as a result, be wasted once the inevitable happens.
With customer service satisfaction levels across the network opertors at an all-time low,  coupled with the increasing availability of wi-fi enabled devices (allowing low-cost VoIP calls and data access), and with churn running at an astonishing 35% per year, even the most myopic telco must realise that change is happening.
It could be argued that 'cool' has become 'corporate'. The mobile phone is now just an essential part of our lives, and when you throw in the perceptions of the customer, now and going-forward, the picture begins to look a little scary.
Among the more tech-savvy mobile customers, the uncomfortable reality for the MNO's is a pervading attitude of cynicism and resentment against such things as high mobile roaming charges and high GPRS data charges, resulting in a complete lack of brand loyalty. At least, that's the case for the long-suffering British consumer.
Virgin, as the major MVNO in the UK, could be cited as something of an exception, because it has invested in CRM and brand values. Virgin long ago scalped Orange as being the only telco able to boast of it's customer-centric focus developing something approaching brand loyalty.
For the rest of the MNOs, putting your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes and saying la-la-la-la as loudly as you can will not prevent convergence and commoditisation - and the paradigm change which will result to the networks as we know them.

Think about the customer
So what could they do now? Is it all too late? Maybe not. Firstly, the MNOs must make the customer the centre of their business strategy and service delivery, rather than seeing customers as opportunities simply to maximise 'rent' as people churn from one network to another, driven, usually, by lower prices.
Secondly, it's surely time for the industry to bury the 3G fixation. Far too much money has been thrown already at a service people simply do not want or need. At least not in sufficient numbers to make economic sense.
Thirdly, it's time for the cost of GPRS data bandwidth to be drastically slashed. People want to access content - and will do so in large numbers - but not when the data charges to do so are so ludicrously high. No wonder the iPod is such a phenomenon, while mobile music video downloads are, at best, a niche market.
The network operators should accept - and fully embrace - the inevitability of convergance with, ideally, transparent billing for all-you-can-eat connectivity to include mobile voice and text packages, fixed-line services, broadband connectivity and entertainment bundles with lower-cost roaming charges. Some have started doing so already, albeit at a glacial pace and even then with a we're only half-pregnant - so it doesn't really matter kind of attitude.
In the meantime, the opportunity exists for the MNOs to re-ignite 'cool' brand values through resourcing existing mass-market content-delivery mechanisms such as GPRS. T-Mobile is on the right track with Web & Walk.
Put simply, my message to the mobile operators may be summed-up by quoting the ex-England cricketer Geoffrey Boycott: "Play forward or play back - but don't dither".